What is the carbon footprint of desalination?

Much of California's groundwater is brackish, particularly near Pegminer's San Diego. Even if the untreated groundwater is undrinkable, it typically requires far less energy to desalinate that groundwater than sea water which is even more salty. The state and Feds have been looking at utilizing much of the previously unusable groundwater as an alternative to desalinating sea water. California has some real water problems. In droughts, there simply isn't enough. The population exploded in the last few decades here, much of it from illegals from Mexico. Consequently we needed to get water from distant places. Desalination is a partial solution IMO.

http://www.water-technology.net/projects/shuwaikh-...

Kuwait has already accomplished this. Their figures on that particular subject are not valid since they have enough fossil fuel resources. But the closest estimate is about 90-100 MWs to just supply drinking water to a city of 450,000. How that correlates to CO2 is up for grabs because of the variations of CO2 to KW conversions. But it would be massive for California.

Like anything else that requires energy, it depends on the energy source.